Mom: Grow Your Business momgyb

1. Using E-Newsletters • to Grow Your Business Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

2. MomGYB is: • Lara Galloway, The MomBiz Coach • www.mombizcoach.com • Mary Hickman, MHK Marketing Group • www.mhksolutions.com • Melissa Lierman, The Time Out Mom • www.timeoutmom.com Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

3. What is an E-Newsletter or E-Communication? • Direct e-mail message to your email address – the sender must have your email address to send this to you • Note that you may or may not have provided your email address directly to the sender • Forwarded from another person • Spam or guessing • Purchased through another source Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

4. What can an E-Newsletter do for my business? • Maintain a strong relationship with existing customers • Give prospects more information about your business • Provide the reader with useful and valuable content • Create more reasons for the reader to like, know and trust your business Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

5. Why Use and E-Newsletter over a traditional US-Mail Newsletter? • Save Money: • Less design and printing costs • Less fulfillment and postage costs • “Green” Savings: • Less printed materials • Less mail efforts Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

6. Why Use and E-Newsletter over a traditional US-Mail Newsletter? • Better Reporting: • Ability to track who is reading and forwarding • Evaluate the success of each e-mail sent • Targeted Messaging: • Organize your list by type of contact • Create unique messaging for different audiences Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

7. Why Use and E-Newsletter over a traditional US-Mail Newsletter? • Difference between Email and other Internet-based tools such as a website, Twitter or a Facebook Fan Page: • Not limited by character length • Dedicated writer/reader relationship • “Push versus Pull” vehicle • Competition IS doing it • One part of your overall marketing strategy Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

8. List Building: How to Gather E-mail Addresses • Start with a strong list of friends, family, partners, providers, clients, etc. • Add a front-end capture (catch box) on your website • Physical collection at your store: • Enter at point of sale • Fish bowl/Drawing • Social Media – Twitter and Facebook • Ask friends to forward your e-newsletters • Incentive or contact via any of these methods Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

9. List Building: How to Gather E-mail Addresses • Organize Your Email Addresses: • Email programs allow you to make different lists versus one big list • Better structure for different communications: • Example: • Clients and prospects versus Professional affiliations • Men versus Women • Kids versus Adults • Parsing out contacts as you build your lists will help you target specific messaging to each group in the future Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

10. When is the Best Time to Send Email? • Tues, Wed and Thurs: • Before lunch hour (10:00 – 11:30) • After lunch hour (1:00 – 2:00) • Mon and Fri – too much going on or checking out • Know your Audience • Biz to Biz sales typically not around on weekend • Experiment and review your statistics Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

11. How Often Should I send Emails? • Start slowly – typically quarterly or monthly are good standard intervals • Other Important Dates: • Something timely is happening • You need the reader to take action • Holiday wishes, special time of the year offers, etc. • And remember, just because someone may not open it THIS time, doesn’t mean they won’t open it the next! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

12. Planning Emails for Optimal Response • We discussed best days to send… • We discussed best time to send… What’s Next? • Planning Your Email Calendar! • Create annual calendar by month • Evaluate by month what’s going on in your business or community that would be relevant • How do the holidays play into your business? • When is your busy time? • What are your different audiences? Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

13. Planning Emails for Optimal Response • Determine your intention with each email: • Informational or Announcement • Action-Oriented • Time Sensitive Offer • Back into prep time: • Creation, writing, photos, quotes, special offers • Set your target release date for each email • Back into your start date based on the above Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

14. E-newsletter Check List - The Basics Every Email should include: • Your contact info (address, phone e-mail) • Your website (link) • Always “sign” your emails for personal touch • Logo or Header (so before I dig in I know who it’s from) • “Forward to a Friend” Block • Social Network Links • Invite the reader to contact/connect you • Bonus – Time sensitive offer – call to action Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

15. What Should Write in my Emails!? Creating Valuable Content • Remember the purpose is to: • Provide valuable content to your readers • Keep you in the mind of the customer • Here are some potential “objectives” of your email: • Inform, educate, share, connect, promote, sell, influence, ask, notify, update, request, teach, train, support, advertise, endorse, persuade, inspire, encourage, request, solicit, inquire etc. etc.! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

16. What Should Write in my Emails!? Creating Valuable Content • Personal paragraph from you or your company • Useful information related to: • Directly to your business • Indirectly to your business • Something that you care about personally • Tips, tricks and other ideas • Special events you are involved with • Community happenings Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

17. What Should Write in my Emails!? Creating Valuable Content • Inspirational stories, client successes and testimonials • Info about new products and services • New ways to use your products or services • Staff bios, additions or good news • Awards or continuing education events • Partner profile or guest writing (never give your email list out) • Special offers for recipients of the email • Photos – at least one per story Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

18. What Should Write in my Emails!? Creating Valuable Content • Remember that you are always more interesting than YOU think you are! • Customers who have used your business in the past are the most likely to use it in the future! • Your goal is to provide useful and interesting information so you keep connected with them for future purchases and spreading the word about your business Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

19. Read, Re-Read Check and Re-Check Again • Once you think you are finished with your email, send it to yourself several times to make sure the messaging is clear, words spelled correctly, and the format/layout is the way you intended it to be • Print it out to check how any “offers” appear • Good technique is to read each sentence backwards, very slowly Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

20. How to Avoid Being Flagged as Spam • Create an “opt-in” feature • Use an email client, not your own email • Ask contacts/recipients to add your email address into their contact list • Create an honest subject line and header • Avoid excessive capitalization, punctuation marks, anything potentially offensive or adult • DO NOT purchase an email list Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

21. Using Newsletters for Benefits of SEO • SEO = Search Engine Optimization • Copy your newsletter into searchable PDF format and post to website (hosting with email provider doesn’t help SEO efforts) • Create a link to your newsletter and share that you have a new newsletter on your social networking sites • Share smaller articles of newsletter in your blog • Post tidbits to Facebook, Tweet it, Linked In etc. • Remember to use your Newsletter like any other hard copy, direct mail piece or business card – share, share share! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

22. How Do I Choose/Get Started with An Email Provider? • Many Options Out There: • Constant Contact • Vertical Response • iContact • Aweber • All are template driven • Most differ by price and customer service • Most offer a free trial period Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

23. How Do I Choose/Get Started with An Email Provider? • Investigate which you think might work best for your business and how you will use the service • We will walk through Constant Contact to show you how to get started Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

24. Constant Contact Email Software www.constantcontact.com • A Couple of Notes to Remember about CC: • Offer 60 days free (up to 100 email contacts) • This is your time to play and experiment • They have good customer service – don’t hesitate to call • Once you become a paying customer you can request the Constant Contact Logo be removed from your emails Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

25. Constant Contact Email Software www.constantcontact.com Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

26. Remember that you need to have access to the email box from which you are sending the email! • CC will send you an email to that box to which you need to click on to verify authenticity Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

27. Welcome Screen: Create an Email, Add Contacts or see past emails Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

28. Tabs: • Emails: • Create • Reports • Surveys • Events • Contacts • Images (buy the $5 unlimited) • My Settings (change your info) Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

29. Name your emails by topic and the date you sent them for easy reference! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

30. Hundreds of formats and colors to choose from each time! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

31. Time Saving Tip: Once you have completed an email, use the COPY function for your next email versus starting from scratch! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

32. Separate your contacts into several lists for better target messaging! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

33. Contacts • SCRUB prior to entering into email software • Look for missing “.com”s, misspellings etc. • CC will take out any duplicates so your counts could be off • Uploading Contacts: • Upload by file • Cut and paste • Add email and other fields (including customized) • You can also reorganize and export contacts once entered Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

34. Click on the underlined number to see the detail of who opened, bounced, which links were clicked on, etc. Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

35. How to Interpret Reporting • Remember that often your response or open rate is only as good as your email list! • 10-20% is considered a good rate • (comparatively a direct mail response of 1-2% is considered good!) • CC will automatically remove any address for Opt-out or Spam reporting • Bounces need to be addressed manually – can download Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

36. Get Started Now! • Gather your current emails contacts • Sign up for a free test period • Create your first email newsletter • Play and practice – the more you work on a plan and messaging, the better your emails will be! Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

37. Offers and Options • Need more help with your e-newsletters? • Mary Hickman of MHK marketing is offering $50 off the establishment email account, design and set up of template, and one-on-one basic training for tonight’s attendees • MHK also offers on-going writing, coordination and management of e-communications for her clients Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

38. MomGYB Contact Information: www.momgyb.com momgyb@hotmail.com • Lara Galloway, The MomBiz Coach • www.mombizcoach.com • lara@mombizcoach.com • Mary Hickman, MHK Marketing Group • www.mhksolutions.com • mary@mhksolutions.com • Melissa Lierman, The Time Out Mom • www.timeoutmom.com • melissa@timeoutmom.com Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com

39. Questions???? • Thank you for Attending • Using Newsletters To Grow Your Business • Visit www.momgyb.com to learn about upcoming workshops including January 2010 • Using Podcasting To Grow Your Business Mom: Grow Your Business www.momgyb.com